Devices and equipment that may be deployed from a control vehicle or base station to a remote location to gather data and information may be tethered to the control vehicle or base station. Such tethering may be in the form of a power/data cable that may include electrical control wiring and data communication wiring such that a controller may send control signals to the remote device and receive data signals from the remote device. Various forces acting on the remote device (as well as on the cable itself) may result in an excessive tensile force that may damage or break the cable and in some applications prevent alignment of the control vehicle with the base station. Such forces may include wind, drag through a fluid such as water, and forces imparted by a motor that is spooling or unspooling the cable from a drum.
When deploying or retracting a remote device, a system may monitor the fleet-angle of the cable. “Fleet-angle” is a term used to describe the angle between the center axis of alignment (i.e., where the cable would hang straight down if no other force other than gravity were acting upon it) and the cable. By maintaining an acceptable fleet-angle, excessive tensile forces on the cable may be prevented. Accordingly, damage to the cable through misalignments may be avoided.”